Captain Tom

[roxfox]

To be super fed up of hearing about him?

It's not his fault but the media etc seem to be using him to distract us from more important things. He's featured on the news more times than I can count. He received over 125,000 birthday cards - he can't possibly read even a quarter of them, what a waste of money and paper. And poor Royal Mail having to get it all to him.

There's not one day we don't here about him and now he's getting a plane or something flown over his house. The 28million he's raised is stupid money too - yes great for these NHS 'charities' but goodness, they are all on full pay! What about the food banks and million other things we could've all supported.

We've gotten so used to hearing Rishi throw money around I think we've forgotten how much money that is.

Is it just me? I feel awful. I know he's a lovely old man who's served his country all his life and will probably die very happy and yes we all need some lighthearted news but ffs all he did was walk around the garden.

£28 million is a lot.

It would probably take several hours to collect that much from Google, Amazon, Starbucks, Murdoch, The Times, The Telegraph and the Daily Wail if they weren't allowed to be tax-dodging parasites.

How many of those cards are infected with the virus?

That was my first thought too.

The NHS isn’t a charity though is it.

The donations go to NHS Charities.

I do agree its all a bit much now. I feel a bit sorry for him and his family.

Everyone saying it could have gone to help smaller charities, there's nothing stopping anyone raising money for the smaller charities as well is there? If someone has a charity they want to support then no one is stopping them raising money themselves, instead of moaning someone else picked a different charity to support. And obviously when he started this he had no idea he'd end up raising such a huge sum of money did he.

YABU

YANBU. The poor bloke must be knackered by now, surely.

ffs all he did was walk around the garden 😂

Captain Tom is a classic example of the British need for mountains of cheesy heartwarming fluff In a crisis.

He seems lovely and so do his family, and I like how he always reacts very calmly and politely to all the hysteria. i have nothing against him at all but the whole “awwwwww isn’t it lovely” and “keeping spirits up” trope is exhausting. The media spend 80% of their time chasing heartwarming tales of pluckiness and kindness to distract us, but it’s getting very annoying.

I especially hate it when anything like this starts a trend and the next thing you know there are endless headlines about “85-year old woman strokes her cat 5,000 time a day for nhs” or whatever and you think oh COME ON.

Exactly. The government and media have pimped Tom out as a distraction. He’s been focused on as an alternative national lottery (known as idiots tax in central gov), but this time the plebs are pinning their hopes on better care during the crisis.

ffs all he did was walk around the garden 😂

I don't suppose it's altogether easy when you are almost a fucking hundred years old.

YABU

YANBU

YANBU
What he’s done is lovely. But it is time to leave the poor chap alone to rest before the walking makes him ill or someone in the media circus infects him with cv and get back to important stuff like calling the government out.

I've applied to NHS Charities asking for funding to buy fabric for our local Love Of Scrubs group. We are literally hand making scrubs for the NHS. So a slice of that £28m could be used to buy the fabric.

They've not bothered to reply to me though.

Switch off the TV if you don't want to see him. Go and do something you are interested in.

Of course the media and government are pimping him out and for a variety of reasons too.

But it’s not his fault that he chose to raise a terrific but modest sum of £1000 for the charities of his choice and his effort didn’t benefit causes that others see fit.

FWIW, I hate that the government is allowing the NHS to fall further into the need of charity donations and all of the “NHS heroes” stuff - as a front line worker (although shielded).
That said, I think Tom is terrific mostly because I expect his effort helped people feel a bit of community spirit whilst staying at home and encouraged people to stay at home and move whilst doing it.

teqcar I found it funny that OP said that and that it’s so risqué to dare to mention it. OP also made clear she’s not blaming him, and I thought she was saying it in a tongue-in-cheek way, but also saying it to puncture some of the idolising and hero-worship that’s been going on over it. The way she did that was funny. Yet again, no one is laughing at him. And of course it will have been an effort. That’s not the point.

I just quite can't get my head around that so many people don't seem overly bothered that he's raised well over 20 million quid for a PUBLICLY PAID FOR HEALTH SERVICE! It isn't a charity, or at least shouldn't be one, ever.

Tom did not imagine that all this would happen to him when he set out to raise a thousand pounds for the NHS. Somehow,the media got to hear about it, and it all went sky high news everywhere. Tom's age was a lot to do with this achievement, and people will always go a bit overboard with a story like this, and it will always roll along for sometime afterwards.

I wouldn't think that Tom would lavish all this intrusion into his quiet life, as he is an oldie gent,and won't complain at all though. But his new found fame, seems to have brightened up a few days of all the doom and gloom of late.

As an aside the "Captain" as a title part is purely a tabloid or social media construct - retired army Captains would not use their former rank to describe themselves.

Bloody hell there are a bunch of joyless NHS bashers out tonight.

I am the least mawkish sentimental person around but I absolutely love Captain Tom and am unashamed to admit I cried a bit when I first heard about his achievements.

Most people don't survive to 100
Most of those that do do not have the cognitive capacity to plan something like this or talk sensibly about it or have the ability to walk at all.
Hence it is a special achievement and worthy of admiration.

I would have celebrated it had he chosen to raise money for any charity. He chose the NHS for his own personal reasons and I appreciate that.

The money doesn't go into normal NHS coffers. It goes to charity funds eg The dementia ward I work on have made a bid to get a little bit of that money to buy some extra therapy resources to enrich the lives of our patients. Stuff we could not afford out of our regular budget. We aren't going to use it on toilet roll and hand soap.
I think it's just the kind of project he intended.
In the horrific recession that will surely follow this crisis I fully expect NHS budgets to be further slashed so this might be the last chance we get to buy those therapy resources.

So thanks Captain Tom from me and a lot of other NHS staff and patients.

Well, thanks to the media so he is able to raise this much money for the nhs charities.

Aside from the fact that the NHS shouldn't need charity from a century old man, I think what he has done is formidable

BUT

The song he's done with Michael Ball, makes me want to stab myself in the ears with a skewer.

No one is stopping you.

Agreed.

Ok I will admit the song is bad
But I would go quite a long way to avoid listening to Michael Ball at the best of times

Said the same thing to dh earlier. Amazing what he did with his walking but jeez let the poor man rest now and enjoy his birthday in peace!